Milnertonian

Paarden Eiland (Horses Island) received this name in honour, according to some authorities, of the wild horses or zebras which roamed there in the days of Jan van Riebeeck, or, according to others, of the more familiar donkeys and mules pastured there by the settlers. V an Riebeek’s journals make frequent reference to hunting game in the wilderness around the mouths of the Salt, Black and Diep Rivers, the area now known as Paarden Eiland. The hunters even had to beware of hippopotamus in the rivers! In those days, the Salt River estuary was very wide. The first skirmish between Europeans and the indigenous Khoekhoen took place on Woodstock Beach.  In 1510, the Portuguese sea captain, Francisco d’Almeida, came ashore at the Cape and traded with the locals for cattle. According to legend, the Khoekhoen took some of the Portuguese mariners to a vlei on the Cape Flats, where the herders watered their cattle. Arriving unexpectedly, the men surprised a Khoekhoe princess, who was bathing ...

The Cape Town City Council developed Brooklyn in the 1920s and 1930s, building low-cost housing for poor whites. By December 1931, the first 20 cottages had been built in the Good Hope Model Village, as the area was then called. Between 1936 and 1944, the Citizens’ Housing League built a total of 742 houses in Brooklyn. Brooklyn before the development of Ysterplaat The area on the Air Force Base side of Koeberg Road is now known as Ysterplaat (although historically it was called Brooklyn and is still considered part of Brooklyn by the residents and the municipality). There are fewer residential houses on the Ysterplaat side, with most of the land area being taken up by the Air Force Base. Commercial activities take place mainly on the Brooklyn (or Paarden Island) side of Koeberg Road. The Albow Gardens flats were built in the1970s to house low-income families. The Palm Springs blocks of flats were built in 2005-6, also to accommodate low-income residents. The Brooklyn Chest Hospital ...

  Census records state that on 31 December 1810, one Willem Caesar and the widow Priem and her two children were resident at d’Yzere Plaat (Ysterplaat), a hay farm belonging to a Mr JP Eksteen. Later, as Cape Town expanded, the area became known as Maitland Common. It is suspected that from as early as 1915 civilian pilots were using this grassy area as an airfield. A manager’s house was erected in 1917 and occupied by Mr FAN Duk, who worked for Aero Services as a pilot and manager of the aerodrome. Next to it was erected the 1920 hangar that was subsequently moved to the museum. The original airport manager's house, built in 1917 The South African Air Force (SAAF) began using the aerodrome when the air force started what was then known as the SAAF Diamond Mail Service between Cape Town and Alexander Bay in 1925.  Union Air Gypsy Moths in 1929 In 1938, the Chief Instructor of the then very young SAAF chose Brooklyn Aerodrome as the most appropriate aerodrome in the Peni...

In 1905, before the first Springbok rugby team had been selected, the Western Province Rugby Union acquired 13 acres of land, to be laid out as a rugby football ground in Milnerton. An early game of rugby Though now taken for granted, there was an innovation in the instruction to the engineer “to lose no time in the preparation of the surface and to get all possible information as to the best means of fertilising the soil for the purpose of growing grass, and generally to leave no stone unturned” – a delightful expression – “to make the field a success”. Such was the advent in South Africa, at a cost of £340, of rugby played on specially planted turf. Cocksfoot grass, mixed with Kweek grass, was the formula strongly recommended by Mr Ayres, the nurseryman. Early in February 1906, the formal agreement was finally ratified at the General Meeting of the Western Province Rugby Union. The Rugby Ground was the area to the right of Rugby Station (centre) During May 1907, a Mr Smuts wrote to M...